Q. What is Goliath and how do I use it?

A. Goliath is one of the WebDAV clients we recommend for Mac OS users. With Goliath, you can connect to the campus web server to upload and download files. Goliath also supports file locking and unlocking. You can download the Goliath installer for free from the Goliath web site at:


Download Goliath

For more information go to the Goliath Website.

Goliath Preferences and Connection Settings

The first time you use Goliath you will need to change some settings.

  1. Launch Goliath.
  2. If a Security Alert dialog box appears, click Install Certificate and then click OK.

  3. When the New WebDAV Connection window opens, click the Cancel button.
  4. Pull down the Edit menu and select Preferences...
  5. Click the Lock Information button.
  6. Enter your email address in the Owner Lock Information field. It should be in the form of a URL - mailto:myaddress@sonoma.edu.
  7. Click OK.

  1. Pull down the File menu and select New Connection.
  2. In the URL field, type your WebDAV URL.
    • If you are using your Seawolf ID, the WebDAV URL will be in this format:
      https://dav.sonoma.edu/<folderpath>
    • If you are using a web account created before July 27, 2009, the WebDAV URL will be in this format:
      https://www.sonoma.edu/dav/<folderpath>

  3. In the User Name field, type your Seawolf username.
    Note: If you are using web account created before July 27, 2009, your web account username should match your Seawolf username.
  4. In the Password field, type your account password.
  5. Click OK.
  6. Goliath will attempt to connect to the web server. When the connection is made a window listing all the folders and documents at the URL you specified.
  7. To save these connection settings as a clickable shortcut, pull down the File menu and select Save Connection...
  8. Select a place on your Macintosh desktop or hard drive to save the setting. Give the setting a convenient name - something like "SSU Web Server"
  9. Click Save. In the future, you can connect to the server by double-clicking on that setting icon, instead of following all these steps.

Uploading & Downloading

Uploading web pages and images to the web server is very easy using Goliath. Goliath windows are a lot like regular Macintosh Finder windows.

  1. In Goliath, open the folder you want to copy a file to. Click on the triangle next to a folder to expand the folder and view its contents. Or double-click on a folder to open it as a new Goliath window.
  2. On your Mac, find file you want to upload. Drag the file to the open Goliath window.

To download a file, simply drag it from the Goliath window, to your desktop or hard drive.

You can select multiple files and folders to upload or download by shift+clicking on your local files or in the Goliath window.

Locking and Unlocking Files

As a WebDAV client, Goliath WebDAV has the added ability of letting web authors lock or check files in and out of the web server. This is very helpful if there is more than one person working on a department’s web site. While a file on the server is in a locked state, it is still viewable on the web, but can not be edited by other web authors with access to the file.

There are two ways to lock a file in Goliath.

  • Select a file to lock in the Goliath window. Pull down the Locks menu and select Lock Items.
  • If you want to download and lock items at the same time, pull down the Locks menu and select Lock and Download Items, then choose a place on your local drive to save the files.

The file icon will change and your email address will appear in the "Locked By" column.

Unlocking a file when you're done updating it is even easier: select the file(s) to unlock in the Goliath window, pull down the Locks menu and select Unlock Items.

More Information

You can find out more about Goliath in the Goliath Help Window. When you're running Goliath, pull down the Help menu and select "Help On Goliath." You can also call the Web Office if you need assistance using Goliath with the SSU campus web server.